Fusion GPS faces RICO lawsuit from human rights activist

Photo from the Human Rights Foundation as reported in The Daily Caller on 5/22/18.

Photo from the Human Rights Foundation as reported in The Daily Caller on 5/22/18.

A self-described whistleblower is using a racketeering law, usually affiliated with prosecution of the Mafia, to sue two founders of Fusion GPS in a civil suit claiming a conspiracy of retaliation.

“A prominent human rights activist is suing two of the founders of Fusion GPS and several Venezuelan businessmen under a statute usually associated with the Mafia,” reports The Daily Caller, a conservative American news and opinion website. “Thor Halvorssen, the president of the Human Rights Foundation, claims that Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch, two former Wall Street Journal reporters who founded Fusion, engaged in a conspiracy to retaliate against him for blowing the whistle on one of Fusion’s clients, a Venezuelan power plant company called Derwick Associates.”

Halvorssen filed his lawsuit under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) statute.

The Daily Caller reports, “Mostly linked to organized crime cases, RICO can also be used in civil cases against legitimate businesses. Halvorssen’s case rests on the theory that Derwick and Fusion GPS engaged in a conspiracy to intimidate a whistleblower, which Halvorssen considers himself to be because he has provided information about an alleged Derwick bribery scheme to federal authorities. …”  

Politico reported on a separate Fusion GPS controversy in January, in which Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson urged lawmakers “to look into what he said were ties between President Donald Trump and Russian money laundering.”

Fusion GPS leapt into headlines because of the firm’s dossier, compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele.

According to The Daily Caller, “Halvorssen’s suit does not mention Fusion GPS’s most infamous project: the Steele dossier.”

Halvorssen’s suit claims the two Fusion founders were hired to produce a dossier and a media campaign “to depict Halvorrsen as a pedophile, heroin addict, and embezzler of the Foundation’s money.”

Bolivian ex-heads of state convicted in U.S. civil trial

Photo Credit: AP Photo / Dado Galdieri as reported by The Nation 4/27/18.

Photo Credit: AP Photo / Dado Galdieri as reported by The Nation 4/27/18.

An April 3 guilty verdict in a civil trial in Florida marked something unique in case law: “The case marks the first time that an ex-head of state was forced to face his accusers in a US court for human-rights abuses,” reports The Nation.

“The events in the case took place 15 years ago and thousands of miles away from the US district federal courtroom in downtown Fort Lauderdale where the trial played out,” The Nation recounts. “For three weeks in March, the families of people killed by the Bolivian military during a 2003 country-wide uprising testified against former president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada and his minister of defense Carlos Sánchez Berzaín.”

The landmark human-rights case stemmed from the U.S. Torture Victims Protection Act, “one of the broadest human-rights laws in the world,” The Nation explains. “The TVPA created the ability to bring cases of extrajudicial killings and torture against foreign officials when the potential remedies are exhausted in a plaintiff’s home country.”

In 2011, Bolivia’s Supreme Court found five former military officials and two former cabinet ministers guilty for their role in the 2003 killings. “After a two-and-a-half-year trial, the generals received 10- to 15-year prison sentences, and the ministers three years a piece,” the article explains.

“Sánchez de Lozada and Sánchez Berzaín were indicted in that case as well, but because at the time Bolivian law prohibited trials in absentia and both were residents in the US, neither was tried. US support for the two men was made explicit in 2007, when Sánchez Berzaín was granted political asylum.”

The 2003 killings happened in the midst of political protests against a natural gas pipeline project. “The coalition government of Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, popularly known as Goni, who had won his second term with the help of US Democratic Party election consultants, declared a state of siege and militarized El Alto and surrounding areas,” the article recounts. “Once the dust settled, around 60 people had been killed and over 400 wounded. …”

Sara Corcoran interviews Alan Lowenthal, United States Congressman for California’s 47th District.

Courts Monitor publisher Sara Corcoran with Alan Lowenthal, United States Congressman for California’s 47thDistrict.

Courts Monitor publisher Sara Corcoran with Alan Lowenthal, United States Congressman for California’s 47thDistrict.

Just published is Courts Monitor publisher Sara Corcoran’s interview with Alan Lowenthal, United States Congressman for California’s 47thDistrict.

“I have the largest Cambodian community in the country, one of the largest Vietnamese American communities, and a large LGBTQ community. I am going to continue to fight for human rights. I’ve had legislation passed with Ed Markey in the Senate to ensure that the State Department deals with LGBTQ issues internationally. Right now, there are some 70 nations where it’s a crime of some sort to be gay and in some of those countries you can be put to death. Together we need to make sure U.S. policymakers are working with those countries to change those policies. We can provide assistance to them and urge that they be required to have human rights protections for all,” states Rep. Lowenthal in the interview.

Rep. Lowenthal also provides insights on the upcoming elections in this riveting interview. Read it here: http://www.randomlengthsnews.com/2018/05/22/19938/

Internet freedom in peril from new anti-sex trafficking law

Photo credit: Vox online article, April 18, 2018, Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Photo credit: Vox online article, April 18, 2018, Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images

A new law that combats sex trafficking could indanger Internet freedom, according to the online news site, Vox.

A flurry of litigation could ensue if the warnings are true.

“The next big battle over internet freedom is here,” warns Vox in its April 23 article. “This month, Washington lawmakers overwhelmingly passed a narrow bill that seeks to crack down on sex trafficking online. To most, it seemed like a no-brainer: Sex trafficking is obviously bad. The law, however, changed Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, a 20-year-old communications law that is the basis of the free internet as we know it.”

The new legislation, signed into law on April 11 by President Trump, “opens more avenues for victims of online sex trafficking to legally pursue websites that facilitate trafficking by amending Section 230, making it easier for federal and state prosecutors and private citizens to go after platforms whose sites have been used by traffickers. …” reports Vox.

“The law creates an exception to Section 230 that means platforms would be responsible for third-party content related to sex trafficking or conduct that ‘promotes or facilitates prostitution.’”

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, “the leading nonprofit organization defending civil liberties in the digital world,” described Section 230 as crucial to Internet freedom.

“Section 230 says that ‘no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider’ (47 U.S.C. § 230). In other words, online intermediaries that host or republish speech are protected against a range of laws that might otherwise be used to hold them legally responsible for what others say and do. The protected intermediaries include not only regular Internet Service Providers (ISPs), but also a range of ‘interactive computer service providers,’ including basically any online service that publishes third-party content.”

The foundation continues, “This legal and policy framework has allowed for YouTube and Vimeo users to upload their own videos, Amazon and Yelp to offer countless user reviews, craigslist to host classified ads, and Facebook and Twitter to offer social networking to hundreds of millions of Internet users.

Section 230, according to Vox, faces more threats than the new anti-sex trafficking law, “but also in light of increased scrutiny on Facebook and the advent of platforms such as Airbnb and Yelp, where third-party content is the business model.”

 

Gynecological mesh is making legal headlines

Caption should be: Photo from CBS 60 Minutes story, 5/13/18.

Photo from CBS 60 Minutes story, 5/13/18.

A strip of plastic called gynecological mesh is making legal headlines. According to CBS’ 60 Minutes, “The manufacturers and several medical societies say the implant is safe. But more than 100,000 women are suing. And together, they make up the largest multi-district litigation since asbestos. “

One of the largest manufacturers of the gynecological mesh is Boston Scientific, which has attracted 48,000 lawsuits, which claim that its mesh “can inflict life-altering pain and injury.” Read more…

California city uses GoFundMe.com for legal costs

The Go Fund Me page for the City of Los Alamitos legal defense.

The Go Fund Me page for the City of Los Alamitos legal defense.

Help with paying a dog’s veterinary bills. Funds to stage a benefit for a peanut vendor. Aid to a family recovering from a house fire. GoFundMe.com, the popular crowd-funding site, typically channels donations to individuals with specific fundraising needs.

But in California, where clashes over immigration policy continue to rage, one community has resorted to using GoFundMe.com to bankroll a legal battle involving the state and its immigration policy.

“Please help the City of Los Alamitos in our fight against Sanctuary Law and our support of the U.S. Constitution,” reads the page titled, “Mayor Edgar’s – Stop Sanctuary Law.” “Please contribute to our GoFund Me Page for the City’s legal defense. The funds will go directly to the City to pay for our legal costs.”  

The Go Fund Me page indicated that in roughly a month, $21,544 had been raised toward the city’s $100,000 goal.

A FindLaw blog reported on the larger legal dispute, noting, “The city of Los Alamitos, located in Orange County, is facing a lawsuit over a recently enacted ordinance permitting the city residents and officials to disregard the state of California’s recently passed sanctuary state law. … But, in response to the Los Alamitos law, concerned residents, through the ACLU and other groups, filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the city’s law from taking effect.”

The state law faces its own legal challenges, but city officials weren’t content to wait for that litigation to play out.

“Curiously, Los Alamitos has actually set up a GoFundMe page seeking donations to fund the litigation,” FindLaw reported. “And if you thought this curious idea was the result of some social media intern on the cutting edge, it was the town’s mayor, Troy Edgar, that launched the page.”

The L.A. Times reported in April, “Los Alamitos Mayor Troy Edgar said he could not comment on the pending lawsuit but stated that it will prompt him to focus on promoting a GoFundMe page that he launched last month to help pay for legal costs.”

Courts Monitor publisher Sara Corcoran tells the tale of legal enigma in her recent Buzzfeed article

All Roads Lead to Baron & Budd-2 copyDebating the “nature of existence” is more the stuff of college dorms (and at least one recent documentary) than state appeals courts, so the legal team for a Texas journalist seeking to open a 20-year-old deposition transcript might have been taken aback when the debate arose not from the other side, but from the bench.

At issue is a deposition by a Texas attorney named Russell Budd, part of the politically connected Dallas-based firm Barron & Budd that rose to prominence, in large part, due to successfully representing asbestos victims. The Russell Budd deposition from 20 years ago reportedly addresses a “witness coaching memo” that was as controversial then as it is now.

Courts Monitor publisher Sara Corcoran tells the tale of this legal enigma in her recent Buzzfeed article, Texas Attorney General Paxton On Point To Open Mystery Testimony.

EPA set to overturn Obama-era vehicle efficiency rules, California sues

Scott Pruitt, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency Photo Credit: Wikipedia

Scott Pruitt, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency Photo Credit:
Wikipedia

According to the Washington Post, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt will revisit Obama-era vehicle efficiency rules. Obama’s policy to address climate change would raise efficiency requirements on the nation’s automobile fleet to more than 50 miles per gallon by 2025. The Trump-era proposal would freeze the emissions standards at 2021 levels. The new plan would also challenge California’s ability to set its own fuel-efficiency rules.

A lawsuit — filed by California with support from other states and environmental groups – aims to try to block the overturn of Obama’s policy.